Lincoln, Davis, the Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg

What the specification asks for

“The impact of the political leadership of Lincoln and Davis; the Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address.” — examined through change and significance. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

The Proclamation and its geography

The Emancipation Proclamation took effect on 1 January 1863 and declared free the enslaved people in the states and parts of states then in rebellion. It expressly excluded the loyal slaveholding border states — Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware — and the areas of the Confederacy already under Union control.

It therefore freed people precisely where the federal government had no power to free anybody, and left slavery untouched where it did. Critics noticed at the time, and the observation is a fair starting point rather than a knock-down objection.

The reason for the geography is legal. Lincoln issued it as a war measure under his powers as commander-in-chief, which reached enemy property in rebellion and did not reach a loyal state's domestic institutions. Applying it to Kentucky would have exceeded his authority and risked driving a border state into the Confederacy, which he had spent two years avoiding.

What it actually did

First, it changed what the war was about. Until January 1863 the Union's stated purpose was restoring the Union; afterwards it was restoring a Union without slavery, and that could not be reversed by any subsequent negotiation.

Second, it ended the prospect of European intervention. Britain and France had considered recognising the Confederacy, and after the Proclamation any such action would have been support for slavery, which neither government could carry against its own public opinion. This is the Proclamation's largest single effect.

Third, it made emancipation self-executing wherever Union armies advanced, since every advance freed the people in the territory taken. And fourth, it opened enlistment: about a hundred and eighty thousand black soldiers served in the Union army by 1865, roughly a tenth of its strength, which was a manpower policy as well as a moral one.

Two presidencies, and the Address

Lincoln and Davis faced comparable problems and handled them differently. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, managed a fractious cabinet and a hostile press, held together a coalition running from abolitionists to war Democrats, and won re-election in 1864 in the middle of a war — which no other country of the period attempted.

Davis governed a confederation founded on the sovereignty of its states, and that founding principle obstructed him at every point: state governors withheld troops and supplies, conscription and impressment were resisted as unconstitutional, and taxation was politically impossible in a system built to resist central authority. The Confederacy was hampered by the doctrine it existed to defend.

The Gettysburg Address of November 1863 is where Lincoln stated the war's redefined purpose. In about two hundred and seventy words he dated the nation to 1776 and its proposition of equality rather than to the Constitution of 1787, and made the war a test of whether such a government could endure — a rhetorical move that placed the Declaration above the compromise document, which is exactly the argument the fourteenth amendment would later write into law.

Lincoln also understood that a war measure would not survive the war, which is why the permanent abolition was pursued politically. He insisted that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery be written into his party's platform for the election of 1864, treated his re-election as a mandate for it, and pressed the measure through the House of Representatives in January 1865 by a narrow margin obtained through considerable political management. The thirteenth amendment, not the Proclamation, is what abolished slavery in the United States, and it exists because Lincoln did not rely on his own order.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

September 1862

Lincoln issues the preliminary proclamation after Antietam. Why this date: He had waited for a victory so that it would not appear an act of desperation.

1 January 1863

The Proclamation takes effect in the rebelling states only. Why this date: It converted a war for the Union into a war against slavery and ended the prospect of European recognition.

November 1863

The Gettysburg Address dates the nation to 1776 and to the proposition of equality. Why this date: It placed the Declaration above the constitutional compromise, which the fourteenth amendment later enacted.

By 1865

About 180,000 black soldiers have served in the Union army. Why this date: Emancipation was a manpower policy as well as a moral act.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• 1 January 1863 — The date the Proclamation took effect, in the rebelling states only.
• About 180,000 — Black soldiers in the Union army by 1865, roughly a tenth of its strength. (Figures include the navy in some counts; the order of magnitude is agreed.)
• About 270 words — The length of the Gettysburg Address.
• Four border states — Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware, expressly excluded from the Proclamation.

The people to place

• Abraham Lincoln — Issued the Proclamation as a war measure and redefined the war's purpose at Gettysburg.
• Jefferson Davis — Obstructed by the states'-rights doctrine his confederation was founded on.
• Frederick Douglass — Pressed for emancipation and for black enlistment, and recruited for the Union army.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'diplomatic weapon' reading: The Proclamation's largest effect was to make European recognition of the Confederacy politically impossible, since no British or French government could intervene for slavery, so its significance lies abroad rather than in the numbers immediately freed. Contested by The reading that emphasises what enslaved people did themselves — leaving plantations, reaching Union lines and enlisting in very large numbers — which made emancipation a fact on the ground that the Proclamation recognised as much as caused..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The Emancipation Proclamation freed all the enslaved people in the United States.

This: It applied only to areas in rebellion, excluding the loyal border states and Union-held territory. Slavery was abolished nationally by the thirteenth amendment in 1865.

Not this: The Proclamation was a purely symbolic gesture.

This: It ended the prospect of European recognition, made emancipation self-executing as Union armies advanced, and opened enlistment to about 180,000 black soldiers.

Two things students merge

Blurred: The Proclamation and the thirteenth amendment.

The distinction: The first was a war measure applying to rebel territory in 1863; the second abolished slavery throughout the United States in 1865. Only the amendment was permanent and general.

Blurred: Lincoln's authority and his preference.

The distinction: The geography of the Proclamation follows from what a commander-in-chief could lawfully do, not from what he wished to do. Reading the exclusions as reluctance misses the legal constraint.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer explains the Proclamation's geography rather than complaining about it. It was a war measure reaching enemy property in rebellion, which is why it could not touch Kentucky — and its greatest effect was abroad, because after January 1863 no British or French government could recognise the Confederacy without recognising slavery in front of its own public.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section B (a) (6 marks — “Explain TWO ways in which … was different from ….”); Paper 2 Section B (b) (8 marks — “Explain TWO causes of ….”); Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “How significant was … in …, in the years …? / How far were … responsible for …, in the years …? You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own.”).

What earns marks: The diplomatic consequence. After January 1863 no European power could recognise the Confederacy without recognising slavery, which is the Proclamation's largest single effect.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain TWO ways in which the leadership of Lincoln was different from that of Davis. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section B (a)]
2. Explain TWO causes of the Emancipation Proclamation. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
3. Explain TWO consequences of the Emancipation Proclamation. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
4. How significant was the Emancipation Proclamation in the American Civil War? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. How significant was Lincoln's leadership in the outcome of the American Civil War? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Decide it

This lesson feeds a Decide History judgement — a position you commit to, an objection you answer, a criterion you name: Why did Reconstruction fail?.

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson: Reasons for Union victory and military leadership
• Next lesson: Gettysburg, Vicksburg, the March and the Southern economy
• Key topic 4 · Civil War and the end of slavery, 1861–65 · America: from new nation to divided union, 1783–1877 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of America: Building a new nation, 1783–1809 · Westward expansion and Native American removal, 1803–49 · Slavery, the South and the causes of secession, 1850–61 · A More Perfect Union? 1865–77